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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]I looked at the Blair Magnet Math courses: https://mbhs.edu/departments/magnet/courses_math.php

They're nowhere near the same level in depth. Good as a stepping stone, but most of the students who take the course will have to take it in college again. [/quote]

Not true.  My son is a junior at Blair, taking Multivariable Calculus.  The teacher from his class has taught the class at a flagship university, and let us know at parent's night that this is the same class.  I can confirm that, based on the homework I see him doing, and the fact that he is using the exact textbook (newer edition) that I used at my liberal arts program (one of the set that sends the highest proportions of students on to graduate school).  From what I could see (paging through text and perusing homework), Linear Algebra also covers the same ground I covered as an undergraduate.  [/quote]

I also had a child who did the magnet program and went to one of the 20 schools mentioned. He had taken multivariable/diff EQs in 11th grade and Discrete/Linear in 12th grade. He brought the syllabus to the math department chair, and she encouraged him to take the advanced or specialized version of the courses instead of outright skipping them. His material was the equivalent of the foundation course offered across virtually any college in the country. He started with Honors Linear Algebra, which was much, much harder than the Blair equivalent. So hard that the whole class spent hours every night trying to tackle the problem sets. No textbook, just pure proofs applied by unique problems developed by the teacher- he did not struggle nearly as much in Blair with any course! Then he dove into Vector Calculus, a theory-based variant of Multivariable calculus that had some overlap, but not much. This is the textbook used- https://www.amazon.com/Vector-Calculus-Dover-Books-Mathematics/dp/0486466205 - as the reviews make clear, it's much more rigorous than a standard multivariable cal textbook. To note, even math majors with no experience in these courses jumped straight into Honors or Vector rather than taking normal Linear Algebra or multivariable (set aside for non-majors looking for a more applied course), so taking those Blair courses didn't position him as considerably stronger than his classmates. He was more interested in pure math so he didn't take differential equations, and the discrete math course he took was specialized for computer science (he was deciding between theory-based CS and math).

If he could do it all over, he'd still have taken the courses at Blair. They are what cemented his love for math, and I do believe they made him stand out. But he'd be the first to tell you they were pretty standard courses, not especially akin to the rigor and depth of those at his college. Math has basically taken over his life at his school (the special feature is research- he's already been published in 2 papers with his professor and peers), and he loves it. But that's to be expected, isn't it? If you're paying the $$$ for a top private university, you want it to have much more depth than a magnet HS. Any school that's a top 20 feeder doesn't take just about any typical math student- the department and the courses would have to be set to a higher level to sufficiently prepare majors for competitive PhD programs.

In any case, I think we're diving away from the core premise of this thread. Blair magnet students are lucky to be able to take the number of courses beyond Calc BC that they can. They're the smartest in a competitive school and have the stats rivaling those at any top college in the country. I just don't think the teachers do an especially great job matching the rigor with their ability- as you noted and as I observed, the courses are fairly similar to that offered at a state school or community college. [/quote]

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